Summer School – Assessment
My understanding is that formative assessment tasks should not be for marks since it penalizes students for learning slowly, rather than rewarding them for learning. However, I’ve always attached some grade to formative tasks, fearful that students wouldn’t complete the assignment if I didn’t attach a grade to it.
In summer school, I decided to do formative assessment. I’m glad I did.
For one thing, the students often did pick up skills slowly. So having more than one opportunity to demonstrate skill and receive feedback before assessment was really helpful. So when students started getting high grades, they were quite surprised that their learning had been recognized.
I realized that formative assessment should have real feedback — perhaps more detailed than summative feedback. This struck me as counter-intuitive at first — shouldn’t the graded assessment have more feedback? However, if the graded assessment is the last time that we assess that skill then the time that the student is given to learn comes from the formative assignments.
I realized that formative assessment should be recorded. This fall, I’ll add formative assessment tasks to my gradebook but with a 0% weighting. In this way, it is transparent that students are learning, or that they’re not. I think it has additional benefits, including: increased student motivation, it imposes UBD planning on the teacher’s unit plan, and it provides diagnostic data for the learning community.
Coming to this point, I’m quite embarrassed that I didn’t get here sooner. If the last two years counted for marks, I suppose my teacher grade would take a hit because of it.
August 15th, 2009 at 5:12 pm
Excellent thoughts! “I realized that formative assessment should be recorded. This fall, I’ll add formative assessment tasks to my gradebook but with a 0% weighting. In this way, it is transparent that students are learning, or that they’re not.” Most of the literature I’ve read supports the idea that formative assessment in its purest sense should not influence a student’s grade. You’ve described this concept very well. To take it a step farther, I believe that assigning a number/letter/percentage to something other than “content mastery,” we are sending mixed signals to students and parents. I think you’ve read my thoughts on standards-based reporting and how it fits into this philosophy. Where do you see as the purpose of “grades”? <– this could be a good question to tackle in a future bog post. (Perhaps you already have, I haven't read through them all yet!) You've come to this point in your career with humility, admitting that you wish you would have realized it sooner. Don't fret! Looking forward to reading more of your thoughts. Add another subscriber to your list!